Friday, 7 July 2017

Benediction

"That's the biggest bunch of bullshit I ever heard," said Joe. "You're trying to claim that there's no
such thing as good and evil, that the concepts were invented and taught to humans deliberately to
fuck them up psychologically. But in order to maintain that you have to postulate that the condition
of man before Gruad was good and that his condition afterward has been evil. And you have to make
Yog Sothoth into a carbon copy of Satan. You haven't progressed one iota beyond the Judeo-
Christian myth with that highfalutin' science-fiction story."
Hagbard roared with laughter and slapped Joe on the knee. "Beautiful!" He held up his hand in a
distinctive gesture. "What I am doing?" he asked.

"You're giving the peace sign, only with your fingers together," George said, confused.
"That's what comes of being an ignorant Baptist." Joe laughed. "As a son of the True Church, I can
tell you, George, that Hagbard is giving a Catholic blessing."
"Indeed?" said Hagbard. "Look at the shadow my hand casts on this book." He held up a book
behind his hand, and they saw the head of a horned Devil. "The sun, source of all light and energy,
symbol of redemption. And my hand, in the most sacred gesture of benediction. Put them both
together, they spell Satan," he sang to an old tune.
"And what the hell does that mean?" Joe demanded. "Evil is only a shadow, a false appearance? The
usual mystic mishmosh? Tell that to the survivors of Auschwitz."
"Suppose," Hagbard said, "I told you that good was only a shadow, a false appearance? Several
modern philosophers have argued that case rather plausibly and earned themselves a reputation for
hard-headed realism. And yet that's just the mirror image of what you call the usual mystic
mishmosh."
"Then what is real?" George demanded. "Mary, Queen of the May, or Kali, Mother of Murderers, or
Eris, who synthesizes both?"
"The tripis real," Hagbard said. "The images you encounter along the way are all unreal. If you keep
moving, and pass them, you eventually discover that."
"Solipsism. Sophomore solipsism," Joe answered.
"No." Hagbard grinned. "The solipsist thinks the tripper is real."